Mandarin Olive Oil Tea Cakes

These little tea cakes, baked as mini Bundts or as regular muffins, are delicious and easy. Another food processor recipe, they can be whipped up quickly, baked and ready to serve at a few moments notice.

They’re called tea cakes, an idea from Yotam Ottolenghi’s and Helen Goh’s recipes for delicious little cakes, perfect to serve with a cup of tea, from their wonderful book Sweet.

The addition of extra-virgin olive oil gives a lovely herbaceous note, and mandarin a natural sweetness. You could drizzle with a lemon or mandarin icing, but these simple tea cakes really need no adornment except a dusting of icing sugar!

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150g extra-virgin olive oil
2 free-range eggs
150g sugar
Zest of 1 mandarin
Juice of half a mandarin
125g milk
200g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

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Pre-heat the oven to 170° C fan.

Grease 8 mini Bundt moulds or a 12 cup muffin mould.

Put the olive oil, eggs, sugar, mandarin zest, juice and milk in the bowl of a food processor and blitz for a couple of minutes until all the ingredients are well combined. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a bowl, then add to the food processor and pulse to just combine – don’t overmix.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and place in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of a cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the moulds for 10 minutes, then carefully the cakes turn out onto a wire rack.

Dust with icing sugar.